


The Tale of the Mist Girl

by DaisyNinjaGirl



Series: The Tenner [18]
Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Māori Religion & Lore
Genre: F/M, Rainbows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25453987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisyNinjaGirl/pseuds/DaisyNinjaGirl
Summary: Day Nine - DropHe’d often seen mist lying on the water, but never before a great tall column of it, like a tree, or a pillar supporting the arch of heaven.  He was curious, and so he’d left his friends to find the source.  He hadn’t expected to find two beautiful young women singing and splashing each other as they washed themselves.
Relationships: Uenuku/Hinepūkohurangi
Series: The Tenner [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1680610
Comments: 2
Collections: The Tenner





	The Tale of the Mist Girl

_In the garden of the Schwartzweald manor, the fog had come down heavily. Drops of dew bedecked the pruned roses, finer than any pearls, than any tears; the water of the little pond lay still as a mirror. Edward Farthing eyed them critically._

_“Once,” he said, “once there was a lake, limpid, calm, clear. There was a pool where mist lay low on the water in the quiet of dawn, in the quiet of dusk. Once there was a lake where the daughters of the sky would come down to bathe._

**The Tale of the Mist Girl**

Now, on one particular day, the two girls, the two sisters, the Girl of the Mist and the Girl of the Misty Rain saw they had an audience. A young man had found his way to the lake in a hushed evening in early spring.

The man’s name was Uenuku. He’d often seen mist lying on the water, but never before a great tall column of it, like a tree, or a pillar supporting the arch of heaven. He was curious, and so he’d left his friends to find the source. He hadn’t expected to find two beautiful young women singing and splashing each other as they washed themselves.

The two girls shared his surprise, but their eyes were clear and they were unafraid. ‘Who are you?’ they asked.

‘Uenuku,’ he said, ‘and now I’ve given my name, you should give me yours.’

‘I am a daughter of the sky,’ one said, ‘I am Hinepūkohurangi, I am the Mist Girl.’

Uenuku smiled at her. ‘Come live with me, live in this world of light. I have never seen a woman as beautiful as you. Please. I’m strong, I’ll look after you.’

Hinepūkohurangi dithered. She’d never met man that she liked so much on first acquaintance before. His smile charmed her. Still, she was a creature of air, of water and it was not for her to marry a mortal. So she made an excuse.

‘I can’t. I have to go home now – see, there’s my sister, waiting for me.’

‘But you’ll love it here,’ Uenuku protested, ‘it isn’t cold and empty like the up above. It’s warm here and there’s the sound of birds singing and the taste of ginger. There are trees so tall, you don’t think they even have tops; they just keep on growing forever. There’s the smell of fresh bread and the warmth of sunlight shining on your hair. There’s the way that in the late late afternoon, the whole world turns silver and gold. There’s wriggling your toes in grass. There’s – there’s laughter and happiness and, and everything.’

She dithered some more. His offer tempted her and yet: ‘you would not be happy with me.’

‘But I love you. I’ll love you always.’

The Mist Girl said (and think of this as fair warning) she said, ‘You don’t understand, I belong to the upper reaches of the air. Even if I spent the night with you, in the dawn light I would have to return home.’

This didn’t matter to Uenuku, even half a life with her was better than none. ‘Please, I’ll be lonely in the day, but please, please come live with me.’ At last the girl relented. She kissed her sister goodbye and she walked hand in hand with Uenuku to his house. They spent the night together, twined in each other, whispering the deepest secrets of their hearts and, well, doing other things that they both enjoyed very much.

They had a good night together and in the morning, Hinewai, the Girl of Misty Rain called to her sister. ‘Come, come to the up above, come to clear air, to the high places of the world. Come home with me.’ And as the sun rose over the hills the two girls floated as clouds into the heavens, as morning mist flees the day.

But she came back the next night. And the night after that, and the next. Now, as time passed, Uenuku’s friends noticed a change in him. For firstly, he was yawning all the time. For secondly, there was a big dopey grin pasted on his face all day. For thirdly, he was no longer interested in being introduced to their cousin’s neighbour’s best friend’s sisters and this piqued their curiousity. Eventually, although Uenuku had resolved not to discuss his affairs with his friends, they had it out of him.

Uenuku had expected them to be envious. He hadn’t expected them to laugh. ‘There’s no such thing as a Mist Girl,’ one said. ‘You’ve got a rag doll in there,’ said another, ‘or a cleverly carved block of wood.’ ‘He doesn’t have any of that,’ said another so-called friend, ‘you should watch you don’t go blind.’

Uenuku took all this with as much grace as he could, but they wore away at him. Furthermore, it was now high summer, and the harsh light of day with his friends casting doubts at him began to outweigh the soft darknesses when his love came to him and all doubts vanished. The time came when he could stand the jeering no longer.

One day, Uenuku could stand the jeering no longer and this caused him to betray his wife. One day, he covered all the windows in his house, all the cracks, all the little boltholes where light could creep in. His wife, Hinepūkohurangi, came to him as usual, and they spent the night together, as usual. Yet in the morning when her sister called her ‘Come, the sun rises, the mist rises, come to the upper places of the air,’ Uenuku pulled his wife to him and said ‘No, she must be mistaken, it’s still dark outside. Then he kissed her and distracted her with soft murmurings.

Hinewai called again: ‘Listen, the birds sing. Light is filling the world, come home with me.’ The Mist Girl got up to leave but Uenuku said again that her sister was mistaken – confused by the full moon, or starlight glinting on a mirror. ‘Sing me that song I love,’ he asked her.

The last time Hinepūkohurangi’s sister called was the faintest and yet the simplest. She said only ‘I go.’ The bird song was now so loud that even Uenuku’s voice could not drown it out. Hinepūkohurangi leaped to her feet and rushed to the door of the house. She stood for the only time in bright sun.

Uenuku’s friends were gathered about the door as he had asked. They had expected to laugh at him again but found they could only stare. She was the most beautiful woman they had ever seen. But also, as she turned to reach despairingly for Uenuku, she was dissolving into mist. She sang to him one last time, of longing and of the wish that things could have been different. A cloud came down from the sky and wrapped itself around her, then drifted away with the Mist Girl inside, never more to walk the earth.

Uenuku was sorry. He was _amazingly_ sorry. He was so sorry there are not words to describe it. He never spoke to his former friends again. He waited, night after night, sitting on the roof of his house waiting for Hinepūkohurangi to come back to him. And then it occurred to him that maybe she wouldn’t, or couldn’t. Perhaps she was stuck in some strange place that didn’t belong to the world. Maybe _he_ needed to go and find _her_. So he left his house, his village, left the people he’d known all his life. He went to a lot of strange places, the tale of which can be saved for another time. Years went by and still he walked the hard flat earth.

_“What happened to him?” a listener asked._

He died. Alone, far from his home. He died tired and alone and far from home, yet it is said that in his last breath the powers that govern air and water took pity on him. They decided he had finally paid enough for his vanity, for his treachery. It is said that at the moment of his death his body was transformed into the drops of rain that make a rainbow, arching around the world. It is said that at the last he was joined with his love, the girl of mist.

_The sun had burned off the fog and the guests of the house stood watching each other with clear eyes. Far against the horizon, a rainbow was shining thinly against the pale sky. Edward scowled, and went inside._


End file.
